Rolling Brexit Links/UK politics in the neo-Weimar era

To avoid cluttering up the discussion threads and because there is so much going on everywhere at once rn.

Angry thread from a NI tweeter, points out how none of Leave are even talking about the impossibility/sheer danger of what they want in NI. Starts here: https://twitter.com/shockproofbeats/status/747362070576898048

@jennyhillBBC: German business institute tell us that Boris claim ( see article ) re single market is not true http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/26/i-cannot-stress-too-much-that-britain-is-part-of-europe--and-alw/

https://twitter.com/jennyhillBBC/status/747340633744908288

Germany rules out any negotiations pre-A50
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36637232

LABOUR’S popularity would be boosted significantly if the party dumped Jeremy Corbyn as leader, according to a new poll.

The UK-wide BMG survey for The Herald, carried out before the shock Brexit result, found that just over one-third, 36 per cent, said that they could vote for a Corbyn-led Labour party.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14581225.Dumping_Jeremy_Corbyn_would_give_Labour_s_popularity_12_point_boost__according_to_new_poll/

http://i.imgur.com/GRkvp73.jpg

The pound since Osborne spoke this morning to reassure investors.

Vote Leave wipes website, including all speeches
http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org

10 year gilt yield is down to below 1% for the first time on record.

Records go back to the 1700s.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-10-year-gilt-yields-falls-below-1-for-the-first-time-1467023195

The article mentions the FTSE 250 had fallen 3.5% this morning. It's now down 5.5%.

How quickly can I join the Labour party? I want to have a say so the right wing Tories are held at bay. I only voted Tory for David

(Cameron's sister-in-law)

i know the guy who posted those tweets about norn iron

claim 2 fame

John Healey has quit shad cab

Old news (10 mins ago) but Amanda Eagle has gone too

Emergency debate on Brexit under way in NI Assembly http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36635182

Sweden also says no negotiations before A50

http://i.imgur.com/1h63etK.jpg

The FTSE, 5 min ago

Maria Eagle's out

Juncker spokesperson says he will meet with Scottish representatives

Someone made an Article 50 Clock

Number Ten says Oliver Letwin to take charge of Brexit negotiations

Corbyn spokes: "We are not moving. A coup in the corridors of parliament will not succeed"

I don't think we need to rush this process, during the campaign there was talk about triggering article 50 and its process of leaving the EU right away, literally Friday morning, and I think quite rightly the PM has paused on that which allows the dust to settle, allows people to go away on holiday, have some informal discussions about it, and then think about it come September, October time.

Constitutional Law Assc says parliament must assent to A50
https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2016/06/27/nick-barber-tom-hickman-and-jeff-king-pulling-the-article-50-trigger-parliaments-indispensable-role/

That and this = re-assuring stuff: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/27/stop-brexit-mp-vote-referendum-members-parliament-act-europe

Election of leader of the Conservative party by 2nd September. Nominations close Thursday

Dunno about JC retaining the young vote...

LYL Statement on Jeremy Corbyn

http://londonyounglabour.co.uk/uncategorized/lyl-statement-on-jeremy-corbyn/

Young Labour has next to nothing to do with the vast majority of young Labour members.

Is there any point to this thread? There isn't going to be much going on in he main politics thread for oooh the next two years which won't have something to do with Brexit.

Tory vote expected now to be Johnson v May

xp I was just doing links and updates, leaving the chat elsewhere

Cameron to rule out second referendum in 2.30p statement

Two sources: 1922 ctte pencilling in Oct 13 for general election

Why would they want an election?

I guess they figure they can't lose, and it will give whatever plan they come up with legitimacy?

{wrong polling figs snipped}

Idk, a few Tory MPs who backed leaving have said they explicitly do not want a general election as it has the potential to be run as a proxy second referendum. If the economy tanks even further over the next few months all bets would be off. I'd be interested if the 1922 had another reason in mind.

Also if that poll is right the Lib Dems have lost over a fifth of their support since backing remain which seems unusual.

Poll seems nuts to me. {Edit: was wrong figs}

Corrected figures:
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 36% (+2)
LAB: 32% (+2)
UKIP: 15% (-4) (!)
LDEM: 7% (-1)
GRN: 5% (+1)
(via ICM, online / 24 - 26 Jun)
https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Voting-27thJun16_pv-only-BPC.pdf

Poland wants UK to hold 2nd Brexit referendum, 'foresees efforts aimed at making UK return', ruling party leader says -AFP

@GuardianAnushka: Labour has agreed to no confidence tonight and secret ballot tomorrow.

Scotland should be fast-tracked back into the European Union if it votes for independence, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said.

Thanks for starting this thread stet. Jaw dropping quote from Matthew elliott. Let's all just chill have a bit of a holiday and we'll see what's high on the things to do list when the kids go back to school eh?

Incredible.

Cameron talking in the house now. Nothing shattering, but says no Article 50 till successor, he wants to stay in the single market (and hence freedom of movement?), and that the house should shape what Brexit actually means.

Clegg calls for an election. Robertson makes threatening noises about devolution. Everybody talking about race attacks. Corbyn attacks his backbenchers and says country need stability.

Cameron says new PM can decide on general election.

Gove and Johnson not in the house

@lbcbreaking: National Police Chiefs' Council: Reports to online hate crime reporting site have increased 57% compared with four weeks ago.

I know Paul Mason gets some stick around here for his weirdo futurism etc but this seems pretty right to me

Our strategic problem is to reconnect not only with the Labour core voters who backed Brexit but also with those who have drifted to Ukip.

I don’t know whether the present leadership can do that; I do know all the previous leaderships failed to do it

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/26/corbyn-leader-brexit-labour-rebels-sabotage

I did read recently that UKIP got more support from defecting Lib Dems than Labour voters in 2015 but idk if that's true.

Yvette Cooper demands cross-party ctte, says "dangerous political vacuum" being left by Cameron

Cameron on N. Ireland border: "oh, that's complicated".

Why should Corbyn resign after a massive defeat?

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, April 26, 2017 3:46 PM (seventeen seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because he's basically hamstringing the party's chance of competing in an election by being the leader

while having policies not hugely different to ed miliband

while having policies not hugely different to ed miliband

that is total bulshit, jim.

The only residual EdStone type shit is coming from the "credible" wing of the party.

well the manifesto should be interesting (in purely academic terms). being written by Corbyn's main policy bod Andrew Fisher.

I guess it depends to an extends on the composition of the post-election PLP, but if surely Corbyn stands down shortly after the general election then the most likely result is a leadership election where the choice is between several Lab-right candidates without even an Owen Smith style 'soft-left' option? (or even the PLP bypassing a leadership election altogether and electing someone by acclamation?)

to an *extent*

while having policies not hugely different to ed miliband

― -_- (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 26 April 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Making sure every school child is fed without going through the means-testing rigmarole in a push for universal benefits is an example of delicate changes in emphasis from the Milliband years.

Also, not wanting to blow-up the world.

the barracking of corbyn from the press though stems much less from the policies that he floats than from his past associations (as substantial or insubstantial as these are), through decades of being backbench bennite rebel labour mp, with the Provos, SWP, Hamas.

he's painted as loony left on the basis of his past, not his policies.

this might be a shame, it might be a real indictment of our political system, it might show our overton window is located very far to the right, but it's an ingrained and inexorable element of corbyn as politician that will follow him as long as he aspires to lead

Boris just called Corbyn a MUGGLE I demand Trial by Combat.

He WHAT?

Thornberry had Labour's response which was basically 'back in your box, you giant numpty'.

he called him a Mugwump according to the BBC, it would be a compliment in the Algonquian language in which it means "great chief"!

Jim - you said it - "from the press". In the doorstep do people know who the hell the SWP are? Its a non-issue.

Where the kind of left politics has made it onto public conciousness would be his anti-nuclear stance and really mostly his anti-EU stance that came in via the Brexit vote. Now here he could lay out a coherent set of oppositions via a set of speeches while acknowleding that it has bought some good, he could forcefully open up debate. But its not something that he is able to do. There are valid criticisms of the guy.

There are failings but I think people would be more favourable if there was any question that the party genuinely backed him. I haven't seen many reports of this but it wouldn't surprise me on bit if Lab backbench MPs encouraged/lobbied May to hold this election just so they could get rid of him and keep up this charade.

I think a lot of those backbench MPs are worried they'll lose their seats and would quite happily have held on for another leadership challenge next year. Rachel Reeves seems to be the name circulating at the moment, suggesting they haven't learned anything at all.

Press attacks on Corbyn seem much less about past ties - which i think relatively few people care about - and more that he will raise taxes and trash the economy. There is occasionally a grudging respect for the consistency of his principles though a clear message that he is not a serious politician and doesn't understand economics, diplomacy, the threat of terrorism, etc, etc - putting the country at huge risk. The fact that his policies tend to be quite popular in the abstract has to be countered with the consistent line that 'socialism sounds nice in principle but doesn't work'.

I don't think that wound fundamentally change if you replaced Corbyn with anyone else of 'the left'. Miliband was himself repeatedly attacked not just from the right but the centre as being dangerously and irresponsibly left-wing.

Boris seems to be floating the idea that the UK will join in with the next round of Trump's air strikes if they've invited.

I keep thinking about the headline of that NS piece implying that Labour should not be a party that appeals to socialists

Brown was attacked for being dangerously left-wing too. The Blair years really did pave the path for socially liberal types to completely detach themselves from the economics of inequality.

Miliband was also and more effectively attacked for not looking like a leader or potential PM: in fact there's an entirely plausible theory that this factor on its own was enough to cost Labour the election.

I thought Miliband should have stood down in time to give a successor a chance to bed in before an election. The electorate's perception of him wasn't fair, but it was consistent enough over a long period of time to suggest that it wasn't going to change.

Unfortunately Miliband looks like a Hollywood casting director's idea of a successful British politician compared to Corbyn.

looking like a leader 2017:

http://cdn-03.independent.ie/incoming/article35635109.ece/ALTERNATES/h342/DailyMail.PNG

which leads to the question, not how does a left party compete in this environment, but why bother? let's just kill ourselves and get it over with

Several of Corbyn's policies wouldn't be out of place in a Miliband manifesto and some of them could have even been in Blair's without many people batting an eyelid, but there are more than enough points of difference as well. It's a reasonably moderate social democratic policy platform (that's also in and of itself very popular) but he's been painted as a dangerous radical. Being timid while looking radical is probably the wrong way round. Unfortunately he's just not capable of countering this, although he's been doing well enough at campaigning. Opening up debate in and of itself isn't enough, and I wonder whether the "why should he resign?" crew would take Labour never winning an election again in exchange for being sufficiently left-wing.

The PLP haven't backed him at all, they should resign from their seats instead.

Pretty sure most of them won't have any choice.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n08/david-runciman/short-cuts

Runciman in the LRB is interesting on this - Tony Benn's concerns that a left-wing leadership with no authority would be worse than a right-wing leadership that had to be able to work with the left. It's becoming very apparent that you need a coalition of both in order to stand a chance - the right knows how to do the down and dirty things that actually win elections, and knows how to appeal to the wider electorate. But you need the left to keep them accountable and remind the party what it's actually for. That coalition held throughout the early Blair era because for every one thing he was doing they didn't approve of, there were another two or three they were very happy with. But it frayed from 2001 onwards, was on life support throughout the Miliband era and collapsed completely when the right failed to oppose the welfare cap.

Any Labour leader who can't find a way to repair that isn't going to do shit.

I wonder whether the "why should he resign?" crew would take Labour never winning an election again in exchange for being sufficiently left-wing

yeah, basically, for a value of "sufficiently left-wing" equal to or greater than "actively working to promote greater economic equality and a strong, well-funded welfare state"

because without those things the Labour party is functionally useless to me and why would I care whether it could win an election or not?

Do you think that makes it functionally useless to other people?

I mean people who aren't smug media liberals or investment bankers.

also, reducing inequality and poverty should not be the furthest extent of the party's ambitions, it should be its starting point and bare minimum reason to exist

I dunno Matt, what is the point of a Labour government that doesn't want to try to manage the economic base of the country?

unless we're back at the politics of "not the most heinous bastards in the bunch" in which case, again, probably better off just not thinking about politics

probably better off just not thinking about politics

I'm trying.

Blairite apologists are still trumpeting Brown's accelerated privatization of the NHS and the demonstrably failed Sure Start programme as their notable achievements ffs

Agreed that the Labour party doesn't serve any purpose in and of itself if it doesn't do the bare minimum for what it's supposed to represent. Still hoping against hope that there's a middle ground between PLP takeover and happy fringe party status tho.

I'm not sure there is one in theory, but what we have right now is so venal, destructive, stupid, vindictive, divisive and racist that I would take virtually anything that stopped it right now. And no the party of Tony Blair and David Miliband is not going to be able to do that, but it also has to be something that isn't completely fucking ineffectual in the face of such an onslaught.

A neoliberal wonk is unlikely to win next time round but it has to be someone that isn't going to preside over another clusterfuck. A left-wing or even centre-left leader with some charisma and strategic thought could actually succeed.

(And yes I totally blame New Labour for opening the door to our current toxic immigration policy, which is why I don't trust them to row back from it)

"actively working to promote greater economic equality and a strong, well-funded welfare state"

This is the bare minimum for me as well fwiw, and no one who can't convince of their ability to do this is going to stand a chance with the membership. But Corbyn is making it less, not more likely.

obv I will go and vote against the Tories which in my constituency means a vote for left-wing firebrand Diana Johnson, and I'd encourage everybody right now to vote for whoever is most likely to beat the Tory in their constituency. but that doesn't mean going forward I'm happy for anything to happen to the Labour party as long as they're electable.

Yeah I'd cosign that really. But "electable" doesn't have to mean "a slightly pinker version of every Tory policy", which is what a lot of the PLP seem to think it should be right now.

I have to think they're just not very bright, or not very interested in economics, most of them. which is gob-smacking if you think about it, like centrist politics has become a branch of social work or charity work. but if they're confused about big technical terms like neoliberalism, maybe some could spell out to them that the Labour party wasn't really set up to let businesses just do whatever the hell they like while the government mops up their mess with inadequate benefits and inadequate social services and inadequate education and etc

shall we do an election thread? "n'er cast a clout til May be out: brelection 2017?"

^^^

a+

I was gonna go with No Brexit: Hell is Other Voters

or "I'm Talkin' Fear" tbh

should maybe combine the former imo

"n'er cast a clout til May be out: Hell is Other Voters

"n'er cast a clout til May be out aka NO BREXIT: hell is other voters -- UK election 2017

tidy work there

Miliband managed to appear moderate despite having policies that were well to the left of Blair/Brown. The right-wing press did their worst to make the Red Ed tag stick but the only people who bought it were other convinced right wingers.

It wasn't the electorate's impression of where he was on the left/right spectrum that did for him, it was the belief that this gawky nerd might be a nice enough bloke but wasn't the sort you'd want to put in charge of anything.

why not move to the nice new thread?

I would argue it's not the politician that's on trial in those situations